Lao Citizen Deported to Eswatini Released After Over a Year in Prison

Phone Chomsavanh, a Laotian citizen deported to Eswatini by the United States under the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, has been released from a maximum-security prison in the African nation. He had been held for more than a year without being accused of any crime in Eswatini.

Chomsavanh was among five immigrants deported to Eswatini in July 2025 as part of the administration's secretive third-country deportation program. His U.S.-based lawyer, Tin Thanh Nguyen, stated that Chomsavanh was only informed of his destination shortly before the military cargo plane carrying him and others landed in Eswatini, a country he had never heard of.

Chomsavanh and the other deportees had completed their sentences for serious crimes in the U.S. before being sent to the Matsapha Correctional Complex. "He had already served his time. Instead they put him on a plane without telling him where it was headed and left him in a prison in a country he had never heard of, where nobody ever accused him of anything," Nguyen said. "He sat there for more than a year. No notice, no hearing, no chance to object. That is not due process by any definition."

Chomsavanh was born in a refugee camp in Thailand after his parents fled Laos. His family later moved to the United States when he was 7 years old.

Advocacy groups Human Rights First and Refugees International report that around 500 immigrants have been deported from the U.S. to African countries that are not their home nations since the third-country program began. Approximately a dozen African countries have accepted these deportees, with some receiving millions of dollars in payments. Eswatini, Africa's last absolute monarchy, was paid $5.1 million by the Trump administration to accept deportees and has received about 30 individuals so far.

The program, which sends immigrants to countries where they have no ties and have not been charged with offenses, has faced strong criticism from rights groups and lawyers, and has been the subject of legal challenges in both the U.S. and the receiving countries.

The Trump administration has defended the policy as a method to rapidly remove individuals with final deportation orders from the U.S. when their home countries are unwilling to repatriate them immediately. Recently, a U.S. appeals court upheld a lower court's ruling that halted the program, citing the lack of opportunity for immigrants to challenge deportation to a third country if they fear persecution or torture. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily allowed the administration to continue these deportations while it prepares to hear arguments in the case in December.

The program has largely operated with a lack of transparency regarding the number of immigrants deported to third countries and the conditions under which they are held.